In-Basket Management
By LeMar Oleson, Evonne Pilarski, and Tim O’Connell

We’re a species that likes to talk. We love to text. We love to IM. We can’t live without our cell phones and our beloved Blackberries. Thank goodness recent advances in technology now allow users to communicate directly with each other and groups of individuals while working within an application.

When work issues need to be communicated, utilizing the In-Basket feature of Epic^® is an easy and efficient way to communicate. It’s easily accessible within any application and can even be set up as your home workspace. It’s easy to use and learn due to the fact that it closely resembles another one of our favorite tools, email. A valuable feature of this functionality is that it is a secure messaging system that only other users, within your service area, can see or use.

The In-Basket functionality can replace paper-based workflows that are currently in use at your site. A workflow in an ambulatory setting, such as informing the Billing or Registration department of a possible Duplicate Guarantor Account, can end up being a chaotic process. The process might involve a form that a staff member completes and forwards on to the appropriate party. Another staff member might forego the form and just send an email or call a member of the responsible department. This leads to multiple requests from different venues regarding the same guarantor account. The request process would be better managed by sending an In-Basket message to the dedicated members of that area.

A good example in a clinical setting of where the utilization of In-Basket has an immediate benefit is in the documentation required to create a legal medical record. The HIM department is responsible for verifying the presence of necessary documentation by the physician, like the history and physical, operative report or discharge summary. In the paper world, this process is not started until after the patient has been discharged. When information is missing the HIM department calls, emails or writes a letter to the physician in question advising of the deficient chart. Based on different events happening to the patient during their stay, utilization of In-Basket functionality allows the physician to see exactly what documentation needs to be completed based on those events. For example, when the patient is admitted to the hospital the physician can receive an In-Basket message advising of the necessity for a history and physical to be completed. For the HIM department, rather than waiting for the paper chart to arrive then following the lengthy process of notifying the physician of deficiencies, the In-Basket functionality leads to a completed medical record sooner after discharge of the patient.

Ideally, the In-Basket’s ‘New Message’ button will be set up to display multiple pertinent topics in a drop down list format. This list can cover a wide range of topics and can be associated with a variety of departments. This can help organize and distribute workloads in a more structured manner. This can also help physicians and department leads analyze the requests, react to them in a timely manner, and understand where a training need lies. Some examples of In-Basket messages that can appear in a drop down list are:

• Same Day Appointment request
• Duplicate Patient/MRN
• Duplicate Guarantor Account
• patient Deceased notice
• H&P required
• Telephone Encounter

There are also reminder features that can be utilized within this functionality that can be associated with items that require your immediate attention, or High Priority status. If a High Priority message is sent, an alert notice appear on the application window in red to advise the user that action must be taken as soon as possible. If an alert notice appears in blue, this indicates a normal priority message. Another advantage of utilizing the alert function is that all high priority messages will appear at the top of your In-Basket window with an exclamation point indicating urgency.

Ticklers on the other hand are designed to act as a reminder to users that more action needs to be taken on a particular In-Basket message. The Tickler function is quite useful in a professional billing setting. For example, let’s say you are working on a patient’s overdue account. If you have sent the patient a collection notice, you can create a tickler message to follow up with that patient by setting the desired time the tickler will be due. If no action has been taken on a tickler message it will turn red indicating that it is past due.

Both Alert and Tickler functions are useful when working with time sensitive messages and will aid in tracking and managing communications. From the nursing unit, to the registration staff, to the HIM department, everyone has something to monitor or convey. For more information about In-Basket management please contact us at vcs@getvitalized.com or call us at 610.444.1233. For more information about VCS and the services and solutions we offer, please visit our website at www.getvitalized.com.